Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press via Imagn Content Services, LLCIf ever there was a self-made National Hockey Leaguer that man is Nick Fotiu.
That is one of many reasons why our Staten Island hero and Rangers legend will be inducted into the New York State Hockey Hall of Fame.
Like Fotiu, so many of us wanted to be NHL players but, for assorted reasons, never could; Maven included.
I'll never forget my Brooklyn living room scene in 1945. Dad Fischler is listening to the radio and young Mave, five-feet away, was doing some gyrations on the living room floor.
Confused by the scene, Dad finally blurted, "Stanley what are you doing?" I wasted not a moment with the answer.
"I want to be a goalie like Charlie Rayner of the Rangers," I explained, "and he makes saves by doing a perfect splits. That's what I'm trying to do but I just can't make my legs do it."
On that night my major league hockey career went up in smoke.
But many years later in Staten Island, young Nick Fotiu wasn't interested in being Charlie Rayner or any other goalie for that matter.
"I was a Rangers fan and used to sit up in the cheap (blue) seats and watching the Blueshirts just made me want to play in the NHL with the Rangers," Nickie told me during one of our many conversationS, "I just had to find the right road."
But there was no road from the Fotiu home on Staten Island to the Skateland Rink in New Hyde Park and that's why Nick could have dropped his dream altogether. He hadn't skated on ice for the first dozen or so years of his life.
"Once I put on the skates – around age fifteen," Fotiu went on, "I was hooked. Next thing I had to do was get the equipment and find a place to play. Once I found out about a rink (Skateland) in New Hyde Park, Long Island, I had to figure out how to get there."
Too young to drive and without a family car, it meant public transportation – getting to the Staten Island Ferry and taking it to Downtown Brooklyn. Then it was hustling to the Long Island Rail Road terminal where he'd catch the train to New Hyde Park.
"Once I saw that the travel wasn't impossible I knew that this was the best bet toward seeing if I really had the goods for pro hockey, only way that could happen is by playing and more playing."
The Skateland rink had a team in a local league and from 1971 through 1973 Fotiu honed his game to sharpness. By the 1973-74 season he began a serious climb to the pro ranks. He passed an audition as a forward with the Cape Cod Cubs of the North American Hockey League.
"I made the team," he recalled, "played two years of solid hockey and felt that I was on my way."